Grant Details

The Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program is designed to create and foster safer neighborhoods by funding efforts to address criminal gangs and felonious possession and use of firearms. The success of the program requires coordination, cooperation, and partnership between state, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies.

Eastern District: Applicants are expected to use funds to support one or more of the following four PSN design features:

1. Group Violence Intervention (GVI): Strategies and programs that promote prevention and intervention by forming partnerships between law enforcement, local government, and the community. GVI includes community members with moral authority connecting with group members or individuals susceptible to violence to deliver a credible moral message against violence. Law enforcement puts groups on prior notice about the consequences of further group-involved violence for the group, and support and outreach providers make a genuine offer of help for those who want it.
2. Gun and Gang Crime Investigation/Suppression: Programs (or task forces) to focus on perpetrators of gun and gang-related crimes. This can include the illegal possession of firearms, the illegal sale of guns, or other crimes committed to benefit a gang.” Multiagency cooperation should be demonstrated (e.g., both state and federal involvement).
3. Firearms Analysis: Programs that should enhance and provide support for state and local law enforcement agencies that analyze firearms and ballistic evidence (including NIBIN analysis and tracing of firearms).
4. Prevention and Reentry Programs: Programs dedicated to violent crime prevention and the identification of persons at high risk of offending (e.g., educational, faith-based, community-oriented, outreach, etc.). Additionally, programs dedicated to the successful reentry of offenders with housing, educational, and vocational partnerships.

Western District: Applicants are expected to use funds to support one or more of the following four PSN design features:

1. Community Engagement: Meaningful engagement between and among communities, law enforcement, prosecutors, and other stakeholders is an essential component of an effective violence reduction strategy. Absent community trust, support, and legitimacy, violence reduction strategies are likely to have only short-term, limited, or no effect and may create divisions between law enforcement agencies and prosecutors and the communities they serve. Ongoing engagement involves open communication and builds relationships, trust, and shared public safety values between community members and law enforcement.
2. Prevention and Intervention: Effective PSN teams engage in problem-solving approaches that address violent crime using all the tools at their disposal. This includes using strategies to address risk and protective factors. This often involve building relationships with representatives of agencies and organizations most suited to provide education, social services, job training and placement, reentry programs, or similar resources to those in need. Prevention and intervention activities can provide individuals and families with skills, opportunities, and alternatives that can ultimately help to reduce violent crime in communities.
3. Focused and Strategic Enforcement: To address violent crime, PSN initiatives often focus strategic enforcement on a limited number of problem places and individuals driving violent crime. Violent crime is often driven by a small number of prolific offenders; they are often involved in gangs, neighborhood crews, and violent street groups and are typically concentrated in hotspots and small micro-places” (e.g., a street segment with abandoned homes; a problem bar, gas station, or convenience store; or an open-air drug market). In some jurisdictions, intimate partner violence is the main violent crime concern. Critical elements of strategic enforcement include understanding the most significant drivers of violence and resources, leveraging technology and analytics, developing, and implementing enforcement strategies, and deterring others from engaging in violence. This may be accomplished through public awareness about DCJS Project Safe Neighborhoods Grant Program 4 enforcement actions and available assistance.
4. Accountability: PSN represents a major investment of funding, technical assistance resources, human capital, and other resources at the national, state, and local levels. The goal of PSN is to reduce the level of violence in communities. Analyzing and assessing information about the incidence of violence and the effectiveness of strategies to address it are important for PSN's success and credibility. A research partner is an especially valuable partner who can assist with measuring the impact of PSN strategies on violent crime and community health.